Two more of the crystal panes overhead split as cracks formed across them.
CHAPTER
108
GENERAL NALANI KEAH
After all the destruction they had just heaped on the Shana Rei inside the void, General Keah should have been dancing in triumph. She had seen hex cylinders crumbling under the barrage of sun bomb after sun bomb, and they had even sealed shut the dimensional doorway so the shadows couldn’t come after them—at least, not from that direction.
The Solar Navy and CDF ships were out in the Fireheart nebula now, temporarily safe, but Keah didn’t feel good about this. She knew it wasn’t over yet … not even for today.
Shareen Fitzkellum and Howard Rohandas both seemed stunned after their narrow escape from the Shana Rei. They tried to cover it with excitement, but Keah could see their battle shock, the realization that they had both nearly died in space. Those kids didn’t belong on the bridge of a battleship in a war zone. At Keah’s direction, the Kutuzov flew directly toward the Fireheart admin hub. “Let’s off-load the civilians and continue our patrol.”
“But we should stay with you,” Shareen insisted. “We want to fight the shadows.”
Keah wouldn’t hear of it. “I’m responsible for enough people. I’m at my limit. I can’t handle two more.” As the Kutuzov docked at the Fireheart admin hub, she urged them to the disembarkation deck and escorted them aboard the admin station personally.
Less than an hour after the Kutuzov returned to patrol with the other CDF and Solar Navy ships, new shadow clouds appeared outside of the nebula. The pair of amoeba-like masses threatened the Fireheart nebula from a different direction, now that the main doorway into the void had been sealed again.
She had barely had a chance to get to her quarters, longing for a shower and a change of uniform, when her first officer shouted on her personal comm, “General, two incoming Shana Rei clouds! We need you on the bridge.”
“Oh shit,” Keah said, then she began to run. “Battle stations! Contact the Solar Navy to coordinate our defense of the station.”
The General made it up to the bridge in record time and dropped into her command chair. The Roamers were already evacuating. “While we give these people time to get away, we’re going to confront the shadows head-on.” She drew a deep cold breath. “Mr. Patton, I hope you found a few more sun bombs for us to use.”
“Only a few, General … only a few.”
Admiral Haroun contacted her, wearing a grim expression. “The situation looks dire, General. Thank you for the many opportunities you’ve given me. If this doesn’t turn out well, it’s been a pleasure serving under you.”
“Stop jumping to conclusions, Admiral. We’ve still got some fight left in us.”
“Yes—as do the Shana Rei.”
When Keah looked at the screen, her throat went dry. “And so, obviously, do the bugbots.” As the two shadow clouds encroached into the nebula, tens of thousands of robot attack ships also poured in.
She raised her voice. “All right people, we know what to do. We’ve had a hell of a lot of practice at this.” She glanced at the tactical screen, contacted the Solar Navy warliners. “I don’t think the shadows learned their lesson, Z.”
The Kutuzov left Fireheart’s main station behind as evacuating Roamer ships scattered across the nebula, flying as far from the Shana Rei as they could.
Keah settled into her chair, wove her fingers together into a tense knot. “No sense waiting, Mr. Patton. Launch our first volley of sun bombs.”
The Juggernauts and Mantas spat blazing fireballs toward the oncoming shadow clouds. The Solar Navy warliners spread out in formation.
Fireheart’s central cluster of hot stars blazed intensely, but the shadow clouds were impenetrable. Even the detonation of the sun bombs did not wash away the darkness.
Robot marrauders swarmed in and destroyed the power-film farms, but workers had already abandoned the operations. Another volley of blasts detonated the isotope storage tanks.
“I think we pissed them off,” Keah said.
“We’re down to our last twenty sun bombs in the whole battle group, General.”
Keah stared at the thousands of robot ships and the enormous hex vessels that protruded from the shadow clouds. “Then let’s make those last ones count.” The words sounded flat even to her own ears, but her crew muttered a dutiful cheer.
Firing laser cannons, the Solar Navy warliners drove forward in perfect formation, as usual—then suddenly the Ildiran ships scrambled about in disarray as if they had all been jolted. They broke formation, which Keah had never seen them do. The warliners flew erratically, out of control, and all their weapons fire ceased.
She hit the comm. “Z! What the hell’s going on? I need you at my side. It’s the only way we’ll survive another ten minutes.”
On screen, though, she saw Adar Zan’nh. His face looked drawn, his lips pulled back into a rictus, his eyes wide. In his command nucleus, the Ildiran crew began to shout and moan, frantic. Several collapsed to the deck, as if they had received mortal wounds.
Zan’nh yelled, “Not the Mage-Imperator!” His hand was spasming and his entire body twisted as he collapsed. On the screen, Anton Colicos looked astonished; his face had gone white. The Adar barely managed to reach up and terminate the communication, and the Solar Navy maniple fell apart.
Keah felt sick with dismay, and she slumped back in her chair. “We’re on our own.”
Fighting to the last, her surviving ships plunged into the oncoming wave of robot ships.
CHAPTER
109
MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H
The darkness within choked him like a black poison. If it could hide inside the Mage-Imperator, then that same deadly toxin could seep into all Ildirans—manifesting in violence, hatred, and death. Jora’h was supposed to be the strongest of his race, and if the creatures of darkness had managed to possess and corrupt him, then the rest of the Ildirans had no hope.
Strong. He had to be strong. For himself, for his people, for Nira. But how? There was a way.…
Shuddering as he staggered into his quarters in the Prism Palace, Jora’h felt violently ill, but he forced control on himself. His hands ached, and he could feel his fingers trembling—fingers that had recently been wrapped around the throat of his beloved Nira, and the Shana Rei had possessed him so thoroughly that he couldn’t even remember doing it. Jora’h had been deaf to her screams, her pleas. He hadn’t been aware of himself as he murdered the other noble kithmen at what should have been a quiet meal in the banquet hall.
He closed his eyes but could not forget the disgust he had seen on Muree’n’s face when she saw what he had done. The black taint was inside him—and he had to get it out.
He heard attenders and guards hurrying down the hall, calling after him, but he sealed the doors to his chambers. He needed to be alone for this. He didn’t dare let anyone near him—not because they might harm him, but because they might stop him. Jora’h had a different kind of duty to perform for his people.
The thism inside him was tangled, and he could feel shadows like cold eels swimming in his bloodstream. A black static hovered around the fringes of his vision, and because Jora’h was the nexus of the thism, all the darkness came through him. There was no avoiding it, and the Ildirans were helpless unless he could do something.
Unless he was strong enough to do what must be done.
He heard pounding, shouts outside, but he had secured the door with heavy locks. Until now, he hadn’t even realized there were locks on his door. The Mage-Imperator always had guard kithmen to protect him, and he had never needed to lock himself away. Then he remembered that the locks were only recently installed by Rod’h—a defensive measure that Nira’s son had taken when the mob attacked Prime Designate Daro’h. As he thought of that, his heart ached with more guilt: Rod’h had seen the grim reality before the Mage-Imperator would admit it. And Rod’h had paid the price, swallowed up by the Shana Rei.
The words of the attenders and guard kithmen were muffled from behind the door. Jora’h ignored them and went to stand in the center of his room, where bright light poured through the curved crystalline walls. In this place he had spent many warm and happy times with Nira. This chamber was the heart of the rebuilt Prism Palace, where he had learned to believe again that the Ildiran Empire would grow and stay strong.
But now the shadows were inside him, and he had tried to kill Nira. This had to end.
His movements were jerky, as if black threads were tangling his muscles, preventing his smooth bodily control, but he forced himself to keep moving. For so long he had pored over the Saga of Seven Suns, listened to Rememberer Anton, tried to find some hidden revelation as to how he could fight this insidious enemy.
Following the old story, mad Designate Rusa’h had sacrificed everything to call the faeros, and the fiery elementals had indeed joined the fight against the Shana Rei at Earth, but Earth was still destroyed and the creatures of darkness remained as strong as ever. The alliance with the fiery elementals had been a mistaken hope. Yes, the fireballs had helped fight the Shana Rei in their previous encounter, when the faeros were stronger and the shadows weaker. Now, though, the creatures of darkness seemed invincible.
He had wasted altogether too much time studying the tale of Mage-Imperator Xiba’h, when the true key to saving himself from the inner blackness lay in the tale of the Ahlar Designate. That was what Jora’h needed to follow now.
In the brightest sunlight, he picked up a thin crystal picture frame, a flat glassy plate that held an image of Nira. He smashed the frame into shards, letting the etched image fall free. “I am sorry, Nira, my love.” Then he expressed a deeper, silent apology toward all of his people before holding up the jagged broken edge. His hands were shaking, but he wasn’t afraid of his decision. The Shana Rei were what he feared, and he had to get them out of him.
As he grasped the broken shard with its razor-sharp edge, yellow sunlight glinted from the surface, which heartened him, although the crystal seemed to reflect the bright light away from him.
“I’m sorry, Nira,” he said again, then drew the jagged edge down his inner arm, slashing open the skin and muscle, slicing his major arteries. Blood spilled out more quickly than the pain came. Before he could lose his resolve, he switched the crystal shard to his other hand. His fingers were bloody, and the edge was slippery. He cut again, plunging deep in a long gash on his other arm, opening his blood vessels wide.
When it was done, he clenched his fists and held his arms in front of him. As his heart kept beating, he could see the pulses in the flowing blood, like swift tides coming and going. Red liquid spilled out of his arms, ran down his hands, and pooled on the floor, spreading out in an ever-widening puddle.
But it wasn’t just red. The familiar scarlet was swirled with black tendrils. More and more of the Mage-Imperator’s life spilled out, drawing out the darkness like leeches. Black swirls escaped from his body. They writhed and twitched, and Jora’h clenched his hands tighter to force more blood out.
Within minutes his vision dimmed. He hadn’t known he had so much blood inside of him, but it continued to flow … still tainted with the darkness in the thism. But he had to get it all out. All of the blood. All of the life.
It continued to spill from the gashes, and the suns shone down on it, highlighting the contamination. All of the poison blood had to be gone—all of it.
His blood flow decreased, weaker now. His heart barely pumped, but he didn’t call for help—he couldn’t.
Daro’h will be a good Mage-Imperator.
His vision and his soul grew darker as the light washed away, spilling out of him just as the blood did. But the darkness that came next wasn’t a poisonous shadow brought on by the Shana Rei, but by a different kind of end, a different kind of darkness.
Jora’h let out a long sighing breath, sure that the last of the shadows was gone from him, gone from the Ildiran race. The thism was clean at last … and he let go.
CHAPTER
110
LEE ISWANDER
Facing Elisa again, Iswander felt gravely uneasy. After docking at the admin hub, she had emerged from her ship—a stolen Iswander ship—and commanded the technicians to make the necessary repairs, as if she were still their supervisor. Then she presented herself inside the control center. The operations personnel stared at her with a kind of horror, but they looked sidelong, waiting to see what Iswander would do.
He seemed to be out of options. “I am not pleased to see you, Elisa. I gave you a chance to make a clean break. By coming back here you are putting all of us at risk.”
“This is where I belong, sir, no matter what else happens. You need me, and I need you.”
“I don’t know what I need, other than to be treated properly in business, and to earn a fair reward for hard work and innovation.” Iswander sounded defeated. “That no longer happens.”
Alec Pannebaker charged into the control center. “You killed all those people. What the hell were you thinking? Why can’t you just go away and leave us alone to clean up your mess?”
She gave him a withering stare. “The bloaters were my discovery, freely given, Alec. For better or worse, there would be no ekti-X operations if not for me—and now I’ve come home.”
Iswander sighed. “She can stay here, Mr. Pannebaker—provisionally. She knows the risks and the consequences.” He narrowed his eyes and hardened his voice. “But I will not defend you if the Confederation comes to arrest you.”
“I have never needed your defense. I can take care of myself. What I need is your faith in me.”
He didn’t answer for a long time, then he said in a low voice, “That’s something you will have to earn again, and I don’t know if it’s even possible.”
“Then I’ll prove you wrong. Give me work to do. Assign me to a crew, and I’ll demonstrate my worth to your operations.”
Though Iswander felt backed up against a wall, he could not deny her. She made him uneasy, even fearful, but she was Elisa. He didn’t want to admit it, but he did owe her, and if she chose to call in that chip, then she gave him no choice. He didn’t want to admit that part of him was glad to have her back. He realized it was a risky decision, but under these circumstances he could not see any better decision available to him. “Mr. Pannebaker, see to it. Elisa knows what to do. If she’s going to be here, at least let her make herself useful.”
The normally cocky and good-natured Pannebaker was obviously displeased, but he gruffly took Elisa away with him.
Mostly silent, Iswander monitored his operations for hours, feeling all alone inside the control center even with his support personnel around him. They did their work, but they sounded subdued. He scanned the daily report and noted that seven more workers had sneaked off, all of them members of Clan Tavish. Iswander couldn’t hold them here against their will, but he wished they would at least have the courtesy of informing him of their departure. He didn’t need to hear their reasons, because he knew all the reasons. There would be no talking them out of it, and he wasn’t sure he should even try. What could he offer them anyway? How could he convince them to stay? He didn’t even know how long he was going to be in business here, or if there was even a point to doing so.
But he wouldn’t give up. That was the point.
He would find some solution, find a new way to resurrect his stardrive-fuel operations, or he would find something else to do. That was what Lee Iswander did. And even if these ekti-X operations were going to collapse, they still belonged to him. Through innovation and development, he had made a vastly lucrative operation out of the wandering bloaters. He wouldn’t let it go … even if it seemed to be fading on its own.
Despite the diminished work crews, ekti extraction continued at full speed, even if continuing to harvest the bloaters was a losing proposition with no means to bring the fuel to market. How could he dispose of all the canisters they had already stored? He hoped he didn
’t have to just dump it in space as worthless.
That thought made anger rise within him. He would never do that! The Roamer clans could insult him all they liked, and they could refuse to do business with him, but they could not erase what he had accomplished. Even now, the Roamers were copying him, making their fortunes while destroying his. Even as they invested heavily in their own operations, they would know—if only in the back of their minds—that they owed it to him.
Then the Prodigal Son arrived, piloted by Garrison Reeves—one of his ships, an Iswander cargo vessel that Garrison had stolen when fleeing Sheol. Iswander could demand it back, he supposed … but he wouldn’t be so petty. He was shocked that Garrison had returned at all.
As soon as they transmitted their identification and flew the ship toward the control center, Elisa strode back in, enraged. “He’s got Seth with him. That’s my son!”
Iswander was annoyed with her behavior. “Your domestic problems are not my priority, Elisa. You brought enough troubles with you. Why did those people come here?”
She blinked. “I didn’t bring them. I’ve been looking for them ever since they took my boy away from Academ, away from me. I’m surprised they would show their faces.”
Iswander went to the comm station as the Prodigal Son drifted in among the bloaters. His words were sharp and clipped. “Why are you here?”
Garrison answered in a calm, professional voice. “On orders from King Peter and Queen Estarra, ships are traveling to all known ekti-extraction fields with an urgent message. We knew where to find you, so we came here.”
Iswander straightened with surprise. What did a man like Reeves have to do with the King and Queen?
Orli Covitz came on the screen, and Seth joined them. Elisa flinched, but Iswander grabbed her arm, forcing her to remain quiet before she could blurt something stupid. Orli said, “The bloaters are not what you think. They are valuable, sentient, and they’re fighting against the Shana Rei.”
Another young woman appeared next to a male green priest about her age. “I am Princess Arita. The command of the King and Queen was issued throughout the worldforest mind, but since you have no green priest for communications, we had to come in person. Your bloater-extraction operations are damaging Eternity’s Mind. It has to stop, or the Shana Rei will destroy us all.”
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